Day 20:

The workouts are coming along nicely. I have settled into a decent rhythm, with a conscious effort of keeping track of when to add weights +/- reps. Weight scale reports 11 lbs down (current wt. = 214 lbs) which is a significant development. Clothes are fitting better. But long way to go. The idea of using this particular workout is to graduate eventually to the senior version of it. I received the harder more extreme version today. Just watching these videos is getting me out of breath. But I realized that most of the moves are extensions or copies of the moves in the current version. This is reassuring since the support muscles will not be shocked come the day to start the harder one.

Diet. I am becoming increasingly sure that the diet I stuck to is the reason for the dramatic drop in weight. Im sill trying to figure out a way to incorporate protein into dinner. But as it stands, I have protein in breakfast (egg white sandwich, granola+fat free milk), and lunch (fish sticks-baked, baby spring salad+carrots+grape tomatoes+cucumber+mango+strawberries). The 3-hour interval between meals works well, as my stomach now seems to anticipate the meal/snack, which is crucial to identifying and averting the starvation+fat storage mode of metabolism. Im eating an apple/banana as a snack twice a day. Dinner is dosa+saagu, which Im not fully happy with. Time to think up something involving lean chicken breast, as fish stick twice a day s unfeasible. Its getting harder however to maintain a consistent time of workout. A few factors are in play here. First, it is advised to not eat in the full hour preceding workout. Breakfast must happen before an hour of waking up. Also, I want to be able to sleep atleast 3 hours after the last meal. Factoring in prep times for dinner and lunch, I am yet to find an ideal time to workout at the same time consistently. I hope this will come to me eventually as I move other things like work and chores around, which are constantly changing. Frustrating. But atleast the question that "IF" I'm gonna workout, is now moot. The 'pursuit of the burn' has taken centerstage. Hope the rest of the actors will not penalize me for this.

I will up the intensity on the vids at the halfway mark. For now, the only change will be the weights in next weeks workout. +2.5 lbs (total 15 lbs on each dumbbell). Let's see how it goes.

See you in a little while.

So I think its time I started a weight loss blog. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that I cannot motivate myself without being accountable in some way. So here goes.

This morning is 2 weeks after I should have started. Oh well. Random mouse clicks lead me to the protein content of fish sticks. I love fish sticks. Thats saying a lot for someone who cannot keep seafood down. So there's this grossly simplified daily protein intake calculator that takes height and sex as inputs. It turns out I am 60 lb. overweight. That's a little person. Thats one checked-in bag packed to capacity, plus a backpack. It really hurts to realize you are lugging it around all bloody day. I must decide on a number. 160 is a number. 50 lb in one year. not entirely unreasonable. A pound a week.

Im gonna try one of these infomercial programs. Don't worry. I didn't fall prey to their constant droning on late night TV and call a 1-800 number to order. I just didn't need the supplement+ online support group + MLM rip-off migraine, so I ordered the disks online. Now they have a catchy name with the number days in the product name, but my first go around quickly dispelled that nonsense. Its gonna take a slower more patient approach to this. Or maybe a third of the way down it will get miraculously easy and self-fulfilling, but all that is speculation. They have a decent meal plan, but who has time + money to follow it to the letter. So as I start this Im gonna pick something and stick to it for a month and change when Im bored. Again, the attitude towards food must change and I hope it comes with the drive to pump.

A recent brainstorm with a good friend boiled up some good-sounding ideas. "You've gotta get angry" was the instruction. Now a lot of us might not be in that place. Its been a particularly crappy 2009 and I mean on the level of a colossal cluster-fuck that the Coen brothers would find compelling to commit to celluloid. So bad that the anger decays too fast and you are hit by a crushing emotional landslide into complete inaction. It poisons everything : creativity, productivity, and even libido. This might mean different things to different people. For me, it meant the reality that I don't take rejection well, have attention issues, and cabin fever. But isolation has had its benefits, in that it silences a lot of voices that might have been clawing at you all this time. A few `moments of clarity' have put some demons to rest. A full year is a wide berth. I resolve not to try and change things overnight, put to paper things that come up in the course to catalog objectively and persevere.

The tools are assembled, more or less. Hello, Square One.

Start : 225 lb

New One Here!

The more the merrier I guess....

Update:

Grabbed research with the Gamma Ray Burst group at KU. Will start taking first steps in research.

Slow GRB

Exploding Star

Anxiety....

Excitement....

Hope....

Bought books:

it hurts but the company on chilly, drizzling Kansas nights is mesmerizing

Frank Miller's Sin City Series:


Set me back by a good 80$. But I guess I love noir too much to care.

A Dame To Kill For.

The Hard Goodbye.

The Yellow Bastard.

Booze, Broads and Bullets.




The Art Of War - Sun Tzu

Dracula - Bram Stoker.


Should last the Spring Break.